Basketball: Crews' Winding Journey To Success

HAMPTON — Bethel basketball player Duke Crews has evolved from a kid who never got picked for games into one of the country's top prep prospects.

Early morning in June 2003 on I-95 South and 15-year-old Willard Vincent Crews rides shotgun in a white Isuzu Trooper. The ascending sun and Penns Grove, N.J., are in the rearview mirror; empty highway and Hampton are ahead.

Crews is excited. He remembers how much fun he had staying with big brother Terrence Patrick and running with an AAU basketball team the previous summer. Basketball with his best friends all day and hanging out with Terrence all night. And this time he'd stay for good? Sweet.

The downside was that he was leaving his mother, Louise Patrick, for the first time. But Crews found solace in living with Terrence. Crews hadn't had a chance to hang out with big bro' regularly since Terrence moved south to play football and basketball for the Apprentice School.

Who cares if he couldn't play on the same high school team as his buddies Stefan Welsh and Vernon Macklin, because Terrence lived in a different school zone?

It was the right move, wasn't it?

But Crews wasn't sure. A part of him thought that it was unnecessary. He believed he could play college ball at a good school, regardless of where he lived.

Little did he know his move south would be the defining move of his life. The move that changed his name permanently, the move that's responsible for his basketball scholarship to Tennessee, the move that has enabled him to play in a prestigious high school tournament in New York this weekend that will be on television. The move turned a raw, 6-foot-7 adolescent into one of the top prep basketball players in the country.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

It's late November 2003 and Crews' mother and stepfather, Cliff Poindexter, sit in the third row of the Phoebus High's gym, cheering on their son.

Nobody calls him "Willard." It always has been "Dute," the nickname given to him as a toddler by his grandmother, Dianne Patrick.

Crews, just a sophomore, gets the ball in the paint, spins left and throws down a hard one-handed dunk.

"Yeah Dute," Cliff and Louise yell.

Phoebus followers sitting near them turn around and smile.

Next time down the court the Phantoms again get the ball to Crews for another basket. This time that crowd joins in with the praise. Thing is, "Dute" has turned into "Duke."

Cliff listens closer, then turns to Louise and asks if she can hear what the people are saying.

"It's like we were saying 'What are they saying?' " Cliff says. "And I guess in their minds they were asking the same thing."

Crews adds: "Everyone would hear it with a 'K,' and it does sound really similar, but I didn't really care because I knew that they were calling me."

Dute became Duke.

He was the kid that never got chosen in Dianne's backyard dirt basketball court in Penns Grove, long before he was a five-star prospect. He'd watch Terrence and their older cousins go at it for hours. Sure Crews wanted to play, but no one would pick him. When the older boys got tired and called it a day, Crews went to work, shooting through all seasons and circumstances.

"I'd only have about 10 minutes before the sun went down," he says. "So I had to shoot fast. That's where I got my game. That was the foundation."

A MOTHER'S GUIDANCE

It's late November 2004 and Louise calls Crews' teachers, likes she does everyday, to check on her son's grades. She has the numbers and e- mail addresses for all of his instructors.

"Duke's really intelligent," Louise says. "But that can work both ways."

That intelligence prompted some inventive ways to dodge studying. When Crews was in the ninth grade, he knew that his teacher would call when his grade slipped from an 'A' to a 'C.' So he hurried home to intercept the call and do his best Cliff impersonation. After the talk, he erased the school's number from the caller I.D. and hurried off to shoot hoops.

"He was almost in the clear," Louise says. "He just forgot we had caller I.D. in the bedroom too. Then the teacher saw Cliff and was surprised at how nonchalant he was on the phone. So Duke's pretty slick, but I stay on top of the grades."

That's worked out pretty well. Crews has a 3.0 grade point average and already is qualified to play for the Vols. He's come to expect the scrutiny from Louise, because she's always served as mom and dad from the day he was born. Terrence was always at practice, so Crews always hung with Louise.

"I didn't have much of a choice," Crews says. "But I like being around her. If she would go, I would go. I like my mom's attention."